KATAWA SHOUJO 2 - RISE OF KENJI
by Haystack44
Summary: MAKE YOUR CHOICE. Adapted from an original video concept by rtilrtil - go search for his stuff on youtube.
1. 0 - Prologue

KS2 - ROK

A bedroom. In a building. At night.

_…!_

[What?]

_…!...! ….~!_

[You forgot to sign. That means it's not good.]

_[Sorry. Outside.]_

[I'm not going outside….it's..it's 3am.]

_[No, I mean look outside.]_

_..._

[Ambulance?]

_[Yeah. Sirens woke me up.]_

[Probably some idiot got too drunk and fell over or something. Happened last year.]

_[We should go to help?]_

[No. Professionals there already. Nothing that we could do except get in the way.]

_[Back to bed?]_

[Yes. I think that would be the best choice.]

Another bedroom. The same building. At night.

"What's happening?"

"I…I can't tell, my room's too far away but the all the noise woke me up."

"Yes, the sirens were most irritating. Well if the emergency services are here, there is little we can offer in the way of additional assistance."

"We…we aren't going to see what's happened?"

"It would be most unladylike to go rubbernecking don't you think?"

"Oh. Y-yes."

"And we wouldn't make ourselves very popular by both stumbling around the corridors in the dark at this ungodly hour of the night."

"I s…suppose not."

"Well if someone decided to get themselves into mischief tonight I'm sure when they wake up tomorrow in the Accident and Emergency ward with a sore head and a bruised ego they'll have plenty of time to think about the decisions they made today."

"Yes. I'm sure it'll be OK. Good night."

"Sweet dreams dear."

Yet another bedroom. The same building. At night.

"Mghng?"

"Quick! Come and see!"

"Whs's?"

"There's something going on over there. There's an ambulance and police and everything. I can see loads of people all running about. It looks serious!"

"Mmm."

"Don't you want to see what's happening?"

"I wish that blue would stay still. It keeps changing to red. Why's that?"

"It's the lights from the ambulance."

"Oh. That explains part of it I suppose."

"What do you mean p…no, no never mind. It's too early for this. Or is it still late? Whatever."

"Hey the blue is darker when I close my eyes. That's a good blue. I'll remember it for tomorrow."

"Well by the time I get…ready and get down there, it'll be all over with anyway. And I've got another early start tomorrow. There's always someone on call for emergencies down there so I'm this will all have a happy ending."

"Mmmthink I've got a towel that's blue like that blue."

"See you in the morning!"

"…"

Another bedroom. Another building. At night.

"He…Hello?"

"Mrs Nakai?"

"Yes?"

"This is the Nurse at Yamaku. We're going to need you and your husband down here. There's been an accident."


	2. Chapter 1 - Orientation

**Chapter 1 - Orientation**

**7.30am**

"….yes Sir, I'm very sorry…we would have informed you sooner but the incident was in early hours of the morning and we didn't want to disturb the Board of Directors until there was something to t…yes, we are monitoring the situation. Currently? As we understand it Subject 119 is down…yes that's him….a very serious fall it seems. Touch and go so I'm tol…It would be a shame yes. We will do all we can, both staff and funds are being diverted. We're well aware of the potential financial implica…yes, I'll see to it immediately. I'll make the call straight afterwards. Also….more pressingly I regret to inform that Subject 117 is…not following his usual routine. What I mean to say is that at 9am he's usually…no, we don't currently have contact with him. Yes, yes essentially he's missing Sir. About 12 hours if what I'm told is correct. I know I'm sorry. Yes sir…I'm sorry if my turn of phrase in this matter offends you. It was simply my intention to not unduly alarm the Board when it has b….I understand Sir, yes. I do appreciate the seriousness of losing 117, I promise you we will step up our efforts to re-establish contact. We'll pull out all the stops I assure you. Indeed. Goodbye Sir"

**8.15am**

Two screens alongside one another play simultaneous feeds of two near-identical classrooms. To the careful observer it would have appeared that one broadcast was paying homage to the other. Within a matter of seconds of each other both feeds showed around a dozen young men and women seated at cheap wooden desks reacting across the spectrum of shock and surprise to news being imparted to them out of shot of the discretely-installed CCTV above the main blackboard in each room. Shortly afterwards individuals are leaning left and right to their neighbours to compare notes on whatever this news was. Reactions range from a few non-committal shrugs sharply contrasting with handkerchiefs in quivering female hands wiping away tears. Arms are put around shoulders. Heads are shaken in disbelief. Heads are quietly bowed. Mobile phones are dialed. Texts are sent.

Elsewhere as this is taking place, a white coated man in his late 20s is sat on a swivel chair in a windowless room, head in one hand, the other drumming on the arm of the chair concentrating intently on the two screens to the middle and right along the top row of a bank of nine. In turn two more banks of nine monitors to his left and right go unnoticed as they broadcast feeds from various locations – an office, a library, a footpath, a swimming pool. Figures occasionally walk jerkily in and out of frame but it is only these two groups of students that holds the man's attention as he peers at each feed in turn for a few seconds akin to someone watching an extended tennis rally.

He searches for something he hopes he does not see nor does he ever wish to see. Not in these circumstances at least. A tell-tale movement, a sudden look of surprise from one of the young people in shot, anything out of place that might require him to pick up the telephone on the console and set a particularly exciting set of events in motion. He hoped it wouldn't come to that, it was too early as it was and his sleep was disrupted by the incident that cause him to be here scanning these monitors first thing.

It hadn't happened yet, but there had never been cause to report such distressing news to the whole student body before. There was no precedent, so all the more reason to maintain focus.

The minutes slide by and eventually the man leans back and stretches, confident that the danger of any immediate problem had passed. A short while later, as he hears a muffled bell ring and the students on the screen gradually begin to file out, he keeps a more relaxed eye on some of the other monitors.

His concentration on the monitors is only broken by the sound of a card being swiped and the whirring open of a lock. He tenses for a moment and looks with a slight air of worry in the direction of the door. He does not see the door however as cheap hastily-assembled plywood partitions running parallel to each wall surround him creating a internal corridor that circles the room, the gap between real wall and this false wall being only wide enough for one person to walk down.

There is a quick rap of knuckles on the plywood in a militaristic pattern, the recognition of this last-resort code causes all tension to subside.

"Good Morning Mutou."

"I've had better ones" grumbles a voice, the plywood partitions quivering slightly as the unseen second figure shuffles around to the gap in the far corner that allows access to the control room. The two-day-unshaven man of slender build in a dark brown suit of questionable fitting and comfort is greeted with a cheery smile and two mugs, one with "Yamaku Academy Alumni Association" and a coat of arms, the other bearing the slogan "Nurses do it with care."

"Coffee?"

"With a side order of valium if you have it Nurse."

The white-coated Nurse grins and handed over one of the mugs. "Sorry, only on prescription – shot of brandy if you like, purely medicinal of course."

"I wish I could, need a clear head today more than any day."

"So I heard. One flying the coop and one not flying at all."

Mutou looked sideways at his colleague wincing at the truthful but no less tasteless summation of events covering the last last 12 hours. He peered at some of the monitors. "Anything?"

The Nurse smiled and shook his head "Not a flicker according to these well-trained eyes."

A solemn nod from Mutou. "Nothing has manifested, that's good. I mean it was only a slim chance but this could have easily been the catalyst and then it really would have been the tin lid on this terrible start to the day."

"Having them all told at once was a risky move. Weren't you worried about some sort of chain reaction? I mean if one of them were to go off…"

"Better this than letting gossip run rings around the place and something kick in that we aren't prepared for. You know what we've been told If there's no possibly of prevention, go for containment."

"True enough, all hell could break loose if it was in the town or something and we didn't get there in time."

Nurse eyes moved to a feed from one of the main corridors, watching one girl's shoulders heave as she leaned against a notice board crying. His brow furrowed for a second and he moved closer to the screen looking for a sign beyond what would be a usual and appropriate display of emotions given the context ….nothing. She was fairly low risk from what he could remember of her file. He chose not to intrude on her grief any further and turned to Mutou.

"So was he close to any of them?"

"Who, 117?"

Nurse gave a derisive snort. "Dear God no, I meant 119."

"Well, he was observed with a few of the girls outside of class. We thought he might be quite the Casanova at first."

This raised a quizzical eyebrow "Hmmm?"

"No. We've been through this, they have that privacy at least. Anyway that's by the by, from what I have overheard one way or another he never got to the stadium, let alone to first base."

"Ouch, I hope the lad was good at coping with rejection."

"I didn't matter it seems, he never got close enough to do anything that required rejection."

"Double ouch."

"Indeed. Treble ouch if you include his little swandive earlier early this morning. Anyway, as you have probably guessed, I'm getting all sorts of heat from the Board about this. We need some information on 119 while he's not entirely under our jurisdiction."

"I only ask about his relationships because this one looks in a bit of a state." said Nurse pointing at the screen, Mutou followed his finger to the slim girl still struggling to compose herself. "No need to panic though, no signs of manifestation but I wondered if you might want to find out anything from her."

"What? Oh her? She was seen speaking to him a few times and she's in his class, but she's just a sensitive soul bless her."

"Have you spoken to any of his classmates at all yet?"

"I wanted them to process it all for a bit first, I don't want it to look like I'm interrogating them. A few of more empathic of them, like that one, will come to me just to talk about it in time I'm sure. Failing that I'm steer a couple of conversations around and see if I can dig anything up. The rapport's pretty good even if I do have to keep my distance."

Nurse slurped his coffee. "Seems sensible, this hands-off approach has worked up to now."

Mutou dropped an elbow onto the console, resting his chin in one hand while considering this. "Yes. Up to now. It's what might happen next that disturbs me."

"And whats that?"

"I don't know, that's what disturbs me. We have to be unobtrusive regarding 119 for a short while and a subject going off the radar screen completely is unprecedented". Mutou's hand slid over his eyes "And of all of them it just had to be him."

Mutou drew his hand slowly down his from his face as if trying to drag the tiredness and stress from his brain. If he was lucky, this was just going to be a long day, if he was unlucky…"You know what? Screw it, drop some brandy in there".

A smile flashed onto Nurse's face as he pulled a small hipflask from the pocket of his lab coat. "Just a drop, doctor's orders."

**8.25am**

The petite skittish girl that Mutou and Nurse had been casting a careful but unseen eye over in the corridor was taking a couple of deep breaths to try and contain the sobs that had prevented her from going to her first class of the day and took out a small hand mirror to check how red her eyes were.

Mirrors were not exactly Hanako's best friend. They were necessary, indeed mandatory, equipment of a girl of eighteen, but their use gave her reminders of why she was here in this place. She had plenty of reminders.

After considering it might be a good idea to splash some water on her eyes, out of habit she tilted her head and hooked a finger around long hair that covered the right side of her face like a curtain to glumly examine the scars usually hidden beneath. The patterns and puckering hadn't changed or improved since the final skin graft but nevertheless she chose to look for signs of reduction. It was a small thing to cling on to. And Hanako didn't have a whole lot to cling on to.

"Is that you Hanako?"

The mirror was snapped closed as quickly as Hanako was snapped from her thoughts. She turned to see her friend Lilly walking purposefully but carefully along the corridor moving her cane to and fro to detect obstacles and as a side-effect helping to clear a path for herself through the students still traversing the corridor making their way to class.

As there were a substantial number of blind and partially sighted students at Yamaku Academy, students moved out of the way with little ceremony. A couple of the less cultured male students slid to the side of the corridor and pressed themselves to the lockers like queuing traffic making way for an ambulance. A side effect of which meant they could spend time appreciating Lilly's statuesque frame and long blond tresses as she ambled by. A less desirable side effect was that Lilly caught one of them a nasty crack across the shins with her cane which seemed to have more weight to it than one might have expected.

Her mind occupied with wondering whether Lilly had taken what looked like revenge for being ogled and more pertinently how she knew she had reason to take any revenge as well as a little amusement at watching the previous enamoured male student limp away, Hanako realised she hadn't responded to the greeting "Oh hello Lilly. Over here. How did you know it was me?"

"I recognised your sniffing dear."

"Oh! I didn't even realise you could do that."

"Practice." Lilly said with a smile "I just have to focus a little more than normal. So I take it your class was told of the news? Are you OK? I have a spare handkerchief if you need one?"

Y-yes I'm fine I think, just a bit shaken up."

Lilly placed a reassuring hand on Hanako's shoulder. "Yes, A very distressing turn of events. My class are organising sending flowers and there's talk of a visit once he is stabilised. However as to not pile upset upon upset, I think this is a good opportunity for me to apologise to you for my behavior last night."

"What do you mean?". Hanako was genuinely confused by this, Lilly Satou losing her temper would be headline news. Inquiries would be held. She worried sometimes what happens when someone like Lilly bottled up their emotions all the time. Then she remembered that people probably asked each other the same question about her.

Lilly bowed deeply to Hanako "I was far too short with you after being woken up last night. My my, I can be so rough around the edges before my first tea of the day"

"It…it's OK."

"I feel terrible for not giving the events due attention at the time."

Hanako looked at the ground, feeling her own pang of guilt at her inaction. "Do you think they'll tell us how he's getting on?"

"I don't see why not, we can but ask."

Hanako absentmindedly picked at one of her shirt cuffs "I think I will ask Teacher about it and then go and see him as soon as it's possible."

"Good idea, I'll go and visit too – he will need all the support he can get. I'm sure he's being well looked after by the best people."

**11.25am**

Hisao awoke with a start and could see nothing but a blank ceiling and a lamp shining in his eyes, making him squint. He remembered rushing wind in his ears. And pain. And screaming. And more pain. And flashing lights. People barking things into walkie-talkies. And more pain. He wondered where he was, he wondered how he was able to actually be anywhere seeing as…

"Oh dear god the roof."

Gripped by panic and confusion. He tried to look around. He couldn't. His head was firmly held in place by something vice-like that he couldn't properly discern, but whatever it was, it was big enough in the way of what little peripheral vision he could have otherwise had.

He could look down. Barely. Two arms, two legs. He tried moving an arm to cover the light in his eyes. No joy. His heart rate jumped from idling to sprint. Was he paralysed? Was he locked in this body with only the basic function needed to stay alive? Was it just because he was strapped down? Then he start to panic about his heart. Which only made things worse…oh god he wasn't going to survive the fall just to have another h…

Hisao felt a pinprick in his neck and instantly his pulse started to settle down. A tsunami of relaxation hit him. Someone in this hospital was looking after him. This was good. He heard a reassuring voice as the needle was withdrawn.

"Take it easy man, you'll be of no use to anyone if your heart pops. I need you alive if I'm going to go through with this."

This was bad. This was very very bad.

"What the.." Hisao wanted his heart to race now, he wanted adrenaline to flood his system so he could struggle through his restraints and escape whatever bizarre nightmare this was. Because as he looked around he was damned sure he wasn't in any hospital and he was even more damned sure that he didn't want to receive medical treatment from…

"Kenji?!"

A mop of black hair slid into Hisao's limited field of vision, followed by a pair of glasses with frames like the bottom of beer bottles and a deeply unsettling grin. This was a bewildering sight in in isolation without the added comlication syringe he was holding. As the drugs flooded his system, Hisao's mind unfocused. Maybe it was for the best, he could formulate a plan later, because this wasn't going to get any less strange any time soon. Through the thickening drug-induced haze he could here Kenji rambling.

"Don't worry, I got this. I didn't mean it for it to be like this. I liked you man. I mean I still do. BAd taste to use the past tense there. But I'm a guy who thinks on his feet. I need to. Gotta move fast. Gotta keep 'em guessing. And I'm just...taking advantage of this situation. I've got plans for us Hisao, don't you worry. But they can wait, lots of planning to do before we strike. But first I'm gonna have to knock you out for a bit man. Before we both go to work, I gotta go to work. On you.

With that Kenji carefully pushed the syringe he had been waving around into one of the main veins in Hisao's left arm.

"Trust me man. You'll thank me when I'm done."

Kenji straightened up with a look of unshakable determination.

"They all will..."

**KATAWA SHOUJO 2 – RISE OF KENJI**


	3. Chapter 2 - Assembly

**Chapter 2- Assembly**

As soon as the lunchtime bells chimed out across the ornate buildings and sprawling grounds of Yamaku Academy's campus, Emi and Rin hustled out of their respective classes, met up at the usual junction of corridors and joined the throngs of students all determined to enjoy some free time away from the tedium of classes or visits to medical staff. Emi had her normal bright welcoming smile but around the outerlying region of her expression were signs that something was on her mind. Rin was her usual self. Hovering around the borders of lucidity, she didn't notice Emi occasionally glancing in her direction to make sure she hadn't wondered off or been brought to a standstill by something grabbing her attention. Sometimes Emi had to fight the urge to grab one of Rin's knotted shirt sleeves and lead her along as both mind and body had a tendency to drift.

As Emi turned a corner she found herself shuddering a little as she saw the flight of stairs leading up to the roof well and truly cordoned off with yellow tape and hastily-written warning signs. Her smile faded entirely as she thought about what had happened to poor Hisao last night. She wondered what he was doing up there in the small hours in the first place, let alone what had happened to cause him to plummet from the roof. There was one possibility that Emi really didn't want to think about, but it was the very big, very grey elephant in the room. There were rumours going around already even though nobody knew anything beyond the bare facts the teachers had given them all this morning but in any school, even one as unique as Yamaku, gossip will fill any informational vacuum.

She had spoke with Hisao a few times, even had an abortive attempt at training with him. He seemed a nice boy, not unattractive she had to admit but there was just no spark there, nothing that indicated anyone she wanted to get even a little close to. She had tried her best to bring him out of whatever gloom that had beset him and once or twice she even shamelessly flirted with him but all to no avail. While he wasn't exactly the life and soul of the party but nevertheless in what contact she had with him during that first week or so she wouldn't have thought in a thousand years he could be capable of….that.

She screwed up her eyes for a moment as if to try and shake such a macabre thought from her mind. Whatever had gone on up there, maybe she'd go and visit him when he was over the worst. Maybe she might give him a second chance. Everyone deserves one of those and-

"Yurk!"

Emi felt two fingers hook into the back of the collar of her uniform and panicked for a moment as her balance faltered. She watched, her progress impeded, as Rin walked on oblivious to the disappearance of her companion. She was just about to call out to her friend when a loud high-pitched voice chimed by her right ear.

"And just where do you think you are going Miss Ibarazaki?"

As Emi saw the vivid pink cloud of curled hair that picked out Misha in any crowd as she flounced in front of her, she sighed inwardly knowing that in a short while she'd be turning around and either doing some explaining or apologizing for something. It was usually both.

"Good afternoon Misha. She's behind me isn't she?"

Before Misha could answer, the fingers released from her collar and Emi was spun around by the shoulder to meet a sight that no student ever wished to see if they could help it, that being the silent unrelenting fury of Shizune on the rampage. Known to all in the school as Student Council President, known to some as one of a selection of considerably less polite names, but known to Emi in particular as the regular deliverer of rambling sign language speeches of admonishment.

Emi blinked in surprise as Shizune, with bespectacled eyes ablaze, launched straight into signing expansively and aggressively. Misha hadn't had the forethought to get in the line of sight to translate and her attention had drifted off in a very Rin-esque way. Meanwhile Shizune didn't realize Misha wasn't speaking and continued through whatever strip she was tearing off Emi.

As this carried on, Emi's cheeks flushed in frustration at this situation and she briefly had an urge to grab Shizune's arms to get her to wait for Misha to translate. Her spine ran cold for a second as she figured that this would be like putting your hand over someone's mouth as they were talking. Given Emi liked all ten of her fingers and had planned to keep them for the foreseeable future, she had a better idea.

"Misha?" said Emi her eyes still on Shizune like a scared animal facing a predator whose attack patterns were based on movement "Can you come around this side and translate? I'm afraid if I turn around again she'll tear me a new one."

"What? Oh sorry Emi-chan I was miles away! WAHAHA~!".

Shizune peered over Emi's shoulder at Misha's signing that the message hadn't yet got through. Shizune then dropped her hands to her sides, sighed theatrically and after readjusting her glasses, restarted her tirade.

"Shicch-, I mean Miss Hakamichi would like to know why you and Miss Tezuka were planning once again to have your lunch up on the roof". Misha folded her arms in attempt to look imposing but failing entirely. Sometimes it was like being told off by an over-excited puppy. "This is an area of restricted access at the best of times as you well know from previous discussions, but you add further offences to your less-than-stellar record by going to disturb the scene of accident?"

A flat voice answered from behind Shizune. "We weren't going to the roof, we already knew about the new signs and stuff. We were on our way to the track for lunch."

All three other girls reacted in shock at the sudden apparition that was Rin. Emi used the break in the interrogation to look behind her up the corridor they had been heading. Where Rin was still heading last time she looked. Wait, how did she end up….? How did she do…?

"Oh is that so?"

Emi turned back to find that Misha and Shizune had now rounded on Rin and worried nearly as much as when it was she who was getting the good-cop, bad-cop routine these two so often seemed to pull. Between Shizune's anger, the complication of everything going via Misha and Rin's somewhat tenuous grasp of conversational cues, Emi wondered whether they could both manage to get some lunch before Shizune broke out the thumbscrews.

"Yup." said Rin evenly. Emi knew from past experience that Shizune usually came to these encounters spoiling for a fight or expecting the opponent to kowtow to her. But with Rin being as she was, Shizune might as well be trying intimidate one of the classroom doors. Emi remembered she had once joked with Rin that she could make a fortune at the casino with her poker face. Rin had thought about this for a moment and suggested, entirely without sarcasm or rancor, that Emi could hold the cards for her.

"OK! Well we can just take your word for it. There's no problem there then!" Misha's voice tinkled through the corridor, her impenetrably cheerful tone belying the obviously facetious spin that Shizune had intended.

Rin shrugged at this and her perennially unreadable expression appeared to enrage Shizune further, Emi tried to step in between her friend and The Yamaku Inquisition to try and stop this from escalating any further but instead found herself instinctively stepping out of the way as out of the corner of her eye she saw someone…two people rushing towards the group of girls.

"Oh, hey Nurse…" she began.

"Can't stop, talk later" was the reply as first Nurse and then Mutou just behind him ran past.

This was as strange as it was new. She had never seen either of these two in a real rush before. Not to mention the fact that over the period of years Emi had known Nurse, even at the lowest ebb of her rehabilitation, he had never been any more than upbeat and level-headed about matters, but in the fleeting moment he passed by, she saw in his face an expression of concern on a scale beyond anything she'd seen before.

"Back in a minute, don't go anywhere" she said the others as she chased after the two men. She dodged and weaved through the lunchtime traffic of the corridors at a pace that would have undoubtedly had Shizune making preparations for war, but the head-start was too great. By the time she caught up with Nurse and Mutou they were getting into Nurse's car. As she tried and failed to get their attention, Mutou was talking animatedly into a mobile phone as her stood by the open passenger door and in the near-empty car park she caught a snatch of conversation on the breeze.

"…..yes, 119 could be used as a means to…"

That was quickly cut off as Mutou glanced back towards the school buildings and then blanched as he saw Emi. He quickly got in the car drove off at an alarming rate down the hill. As she walked back to the entrance to the roof stairs, Emi struggling to find any sensible context for the phrase she overheard. 119 was the emergency services number sure, but Nurse wasn't a paramedic or anything.

Emi blanched as she realized this could only be something to do with Hisao. But what had he got to do with the emergency services when he was already in hospital. Except…oh no...Emi's hand went to her mouth as one morbid thought after another swirled through her mind. Then again, if something like that had happened, why would they summon those two? It's not like they don't have plenty of qualified staff at the hospital already – she had met a fair few of them in the past and they seemed more than capable. Presumably if something bad had happened, the hospital would ring his parents, not two people who'd only know him for a week or so? This was getting weird.

She needed a second opinion. She's have to ask…well, not Rin. Not to start with anyway. She would probably put it down to the influence of the purple weasel s or something. No, she'd have to speak to the Dynamic Duo about this first.

By the time Emi returned, the grilling had finished and all three others girls were waiting for her with varying levels of patience. Shizune in particular had her arms folded and was tapping her foot, waiting to fire off another salvo.

"OK Miss Ibarazaki, it was something of a struggle but we've got enough information out of Miss Tezuka..."

"That's me."

"…and we have…" Misha glanced sidelong at Rin for a moment. "…and we have decided that you weren't heading for the roof."

"Yes. So can we go now?" Emi asked more out of hope than expectation. She had a grim feeling about what was coming next.

"However," continued Misha, both her and Shizune ready to build to a crescendo. "Now we have to have another talk with you about bailing out during official Student Council business AND running in the corridors…"

Emi had had enough of this. "OK look, I'm sorry about that and you can give me a spanking for it later but there definitely something funny going on."

Before Shizune went ballistic over that piece of insubordination, Emi launched into an explanation of the strange behavior of the two staff members. As Misha translated, Shizune started to simmer down a little as the events seem to perplex her as well.

"I know Nurse for longer than any of you, and I'm telling you all that wasn't normal. I've never seen him looking so worried before and usually he would have taken a few seconds to explain. I've never seen him or Mutou rushing about the place before. And that look Mutou gave me."

"So you think this is about Hisao?" asked Rin.

Emi shrugged "What else could it be? He might have woken up and be ready to tell them what happened."

"He fell off the roof, not much to explain. I think our teachers know how gravity works."

Emi waited for Misha to stop laughing. "No. I mean whether he just fell or someone pushed him or…." Emi tailed off, even Rin understood what was being left unsaid.

"So what do suggest we do? We can't leave to go to hospital during school hours and we can't go and demand that teachers answer our questions. It's not our place."

Emi nodded in the direction the sectioned-off stairway. Shizune quickly realized what she meant and shook her head vigorously before signing her protestations to Misha.

"No. We are not the school's detective agency. We have no business sticking our noses in and furthermore we could be disturbing a crime scene.

"Isn't it part of your duties as Student Council President to help out the staff with problems?" Emi smiled mischievously. "Imagine how impressed they would be if you went to them with some information everyone else had missed. You'd be helping out them, you'd be helping out the school and you'd probably be helping out Hisao."

Shizune had a strong suspicion she was being played here. She'd been caught coming and going. On top of the Student Council angle that she had to admit (to herself only) was a good point, she felt a twinge of guilt and worry as she thought of poor Hisao in some hospital bed covered in wires and limbs in plaster casts. He seemed a nice boy. She had felt the rare stirrings of something like affection for him quite early on as he showed quite a competitive streak, but in the days before the festival he had become increasingly moody and unapproachable. The final straw came with that little incident with Misha that had quite upset the both of them. He had very much gone down in her estimation and Hisao had wisely decided to give them a wide berth after that. Shizune realized that that was the last time they saw him. She turned to Misha hoping for some sort of support or some way out of what they were being railroaded into.

[I'm really not sure about this.]

_[Shicchan, I want to know what happened too. I feel bad about Hicchan.]_

Damn! Emi really had pushed both their respective buttons. For all the reasons she got on her nerves, sometimes the Ibarazaki girl was sometimes as devious as…well, as she herself was. A few minutes ago it was Emi breaking the rules, and now she's shanghaied the rest of them into the same thing. Shizune knew she needed to regain the advantage here. She held up a hand in surrender to this barrage of emotional blackmail and parley with her opponent.

"OK. OK. We go up. But I…we go first. We'll carry out some…pre-mil-in-ary investigations. Until then you two stay by the door. No-one's needs clumsy people trampling over crucial evidence."

Emi nodded. Rin shrugged.

"And then we can find out just what, if anything, is going on."

**…**

"JUST WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?"

Mutou's headache was getting worse each time he was slammed against the wall.

"WHERE. THE. HELL. IS. MY. SON?"

Each word was punctuated with another thump of Mutou's back against the brick of the hospital's main entrance. In the circumstances he thought it best to let the man work his way through this and hope for the best.

"Whoa, easy there Mr. Nakai. C'mon now, violence isn't going to solve anything. "

Hisao's father slapped away the hand placed on his shoulder, let go of Mutou's lapels and spun around to vent some more rage.

"You are his teachers! His guardians! He was in YOUR care! First you have such little supervision that a boy with a dangerous heart defect can get on the school roof and to top that, he goes MISSING? We've already had one call with awful news already today, and now I get a call from this place asking us if we know where Hisao is and saying we'd given permission to move him. Do you know what kind of state my wife is in?" Mr. Nakai jabbed a finger in Nurse's chest. "Tell me something, does your school have lawyers appointed? If they don't and this isn't sorted out today, you're sure as hell going to need them!"

Everyone at Yamaku had handled angry parents at one time or another. Parents who thought that the school was doing too little. Or not enough. Or that they knew better. Arguments over treatment or funding. Nothing like this before though. Nurse himself didn't know whether to be angry himself or worried at this new turn of events. At the moment however he had to focus on the task of bringing the man in front of him around to something approaching a rational state of mind before it all got completely out of control. Not something that he expected to be easy. He took a step back and tried to keep an even tone so not to provoke or be provoked.

"Mr. Nakai please. We only found out about that your son wasn't in his bed just now and we came straight down here. We left your son in the care of the hospital and he was been monitored around the clock."

"Monitored? Hah!"

"Yes well. Rest assured that this has nothing to do with Yamaku but…" Nurse raised a hand to cut off any accusations of passing the buck "…both ourselves and the Board of Directors will be having a full inquiry and-"

Mr. Nakai erupted for a second time in as many minutes "An Inquiry? Are you serious? My son, my badly injured son, is MISSING! To hell with inquiries! Here and now what are you going to do?

"Well if you will agree to let me do the talking, right now I'm going to go through that door and knock some heads together in there. Figuratively speaking of course."

"Why should I let you? When you and this one here…" Mr. Nakai jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the dejected-looking Mutou "…handle a damned thing? You pair of jokers are part of the reason for all this."

"Because there are patients in there. I'm a medical professional…"

"Hah!"

"…and I don't want to see anyone on the wards being distressed by this situation, especially if it just turns out to be just an administration error or suchlike. There's no need to upset anyone if it turns out the wrong box has been ticked on a form. And believe me if it is something as ridiculous as that I will personally make sure there is a queue of people ready to apologise to both you and your wife for the distress course. So if you will allow me Mr. Nakai, I will lead this investigation and get to the bottom of just where you son is".

Mr. Nakai, only slightly appeased by this plan of action, went to the entrance of the hospital and gestured towards the building like an extremely sarcastic hotel doorman. "OK. Despite everything you are probably the person who knows what who to ask and where to look. You'd better be anyway. "

**…**

Shizune pushed open the metal door to the roof, shielded her eyes from the afternoon sunshine for a moment and then looked around. It didn't take a sleuth to see what had occurred up here the previous night. Even from the entrance to the roof she could see the broken fence, the discarded food wrappers held down underneath some glass bottles.

As she went back through the doorway, a stiff breeze caught a small card and blew it out over the roof where it snagged in the top of a tree out of reach.

Inside, Shizune leaned over the handrail and gestured to the other girls to come up, explaining through Misha the importance of do so in single file. As they followed behind Shizune trying not to disturb so much as a single pebble, she pointed to one of the bottles and pointed to her nose. Emi and Rin both bent over the bottle and both recoiled.

"Hoo-weee, that's strong stuff!"

"So what are we saying here, he drank a load and decided he could fly?" asked Rin as Emi helped her off her knees.

The question went unanswered as Shizune surveyed the scene almost from various angles, after a few minutes she clicked her fingers in a sign of victory and beckoned for everyone to stand next to her and then pointed at the ground. The other girls looked at each other uncomprehendingly.

_[I don't get it. What are we looking at Shicchan?]_

Shizune wrinkled her nose in irritation for a moment, and then strode over to area near the previous night's detritus, pointed at the ground in 4 separate places in a row, pointed at her feet, then gave a peace sign.

Emi scratched the back of her head in confusion. "Misha, tell her we still don't follow. Is she saying that that's where he jumped from, because that's too far from…"

"She's saying there were two people here last night. There's four piles of pebbles were two sets of feet have pushed it them up while sat down. Displaced them if you will."

Misha signed to ask if this was correct. This received a smile and enthusiastic nodding. Shizune then asked Misha who figured it out. She didn't even attempt to hide her surprise.

Emi, having finally come up to speed, brought a hand to her mouth in shock. "Is she going with this where I think she's going?"

Misha asked what Shizune thought had happened. She got a shrug in response.

[Not for me to say. But if no-one else has realised there were two up here, we should be letting someone know. If they do know we should all be told if we should be looking out for anyone. If a crime happened here, we should all be working to catch the culprit. Bottom line is we've not been told everything. At very least I should have given all the facts. That's not right.]

Misha gave the gist of this to Rin and Emi. And then gave it a second time to Rin as she had quickly tuned out with her head on one side looking at some telephone wires swaying in the breeze.

"So what now then?"

After some signing back and forth Misha explained. "We all meet up after classes today, we track down Mutou or Nurse, I will present what I've found and see what they say. So you will all have to watch carefully to see how they react. Depending on that we decide on our next plan of action. Are we agreed?".

Three sets of nods.

"One last question for President Girl."

"Yes Rin?"

"An important one that this whole thing could hinge on."

"Yes Rin."

"So make sure she doesn't just answer with the first thing that comes into her head."

"OK."

"Where are we having lunch?"

**…**

Mr. Nakai and Mutou sit either side of a pensioner with a hacking cough in one of the hospital waiting areas, one not wanting to make conversation, the other not daring. They had been there for a good half hour and had on a couple of occasions in that time had fleetingly seen Nurse striding through double doors in animated conversation with staff and generally giving the impression something was getting done. Now finally Nurse came back the door behind the receptionist holding a clipboard and wearing a cheerful expression. Both seated men rose to their feet in expectation.

"I've got good news Mr. Nakai, there has been an admin error after all. Hisao was put in an ambulance to be transferred, but the ambulance only got 2 minutes down the road when someone realized he wasn't a 35 year old heavily pregnant woman. Typing error apparently. Anyway, he got brought back, wires got crossed, you were called up, whole big crazy mess." Nurse bowed deeply. "I would like to humbly apologise on behalf of Yamaku Academy and the hospital for any distress this has caused you and your wife".

Mr. Nakai sat back down with his hands on his knees and gave a long breath out. "Well, no harm done I suppose, I hope someone gets a kick up the backside for though. Neither of us needed this on top of everything else."

Nurse gave one of his best reassuring smiles "They'll get several. I'll make sure of it personally."

"So, can I go see him then?"

Nurse consulted his notes "I…I'm afraid not. He's gone into surgery you see. It's some exploratory work regarding his heart. His other injuries will heal in time but as you can imagine this will have piled on a lot of extra risk in terms of his arrhythmia. They need to find out whether a pacemaker or even a transplant is necessary. It's both a short and long term thing you see."

"I understand."

"So, in that case Mr. Nakai" said the Nurse putting a friendly arm around his shoulders and leading him to the front doors of the hospital "your prescription is to go home, get some rest, look after your wife and wait for me or the hospital to call you once Hisao is back on the ward."

As if by the power of suggestion alone Mr. Nakai rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times.

"Do you need a lift back or are you OK to drive?"

"No, I'll be fine. That rancid vending machine coffee will keep me going until I get home. Thanks for sorting this out." Mr. Nakai thought for a moment and looked past the Nurse and raised a hand sheepishly. "And…um…Mutou? Sorry about earlier I…"

Mutou waved away any apologies "Forgotten already. Perfectly understandable. Have a good journey back."

As the two men waved to a considerably more relaxed looking Mr. Nakai as he got into his car, Mutou muttered through the corner of his mouth "So where is he then?"

Nurse kept smiling and waving "Not a goddamn clue. But there is something you need to see."

"Anything good?"

"What do you think?"

Mutou grimaced "I think you need to swipe me some paracetamol first chance you get."

"No problem. Now follow me."

The Nurse took them back through the door he had originally entered into the reception area, through an area bustling with administration staff, across a section filled from floor to ceiling with hard copies of patient files and finally knocked on a locked door labeled "Security. Authorised Personnel Only".

A face briefly appeared at the small glass window, nodded in recognition and let them in. Nurse gave a small bow and explained that Mutou was a colleague of his and that we was sorry that he didn't have the right ID badge and so forth. They were both led into a scruffy-looking room with CCTV monitors providing coverage of the more public areas both inside and outside the hospital. People in wheelchairs were being pushed in, people eating in the canteen and so on. Mutou spotted a view one of the side entrances seemed to be populated by 2 sickly-looking patients in hospital gowns inexplicably smoking.

"OK, pull up again what you showed me earlier." said Nurse as the security guard clicked a few keys on a computer with a monitor away from the main bank of screen for the purpose of reviewing specific footage and started to scan through footage which the timecode on the screen revealed to be from around 4.45 that morning. After about thirty seconds Nurse pointed at the screen.

"And there he goes."

Mutou looked at the footage in astonishment. "What the…? Someone just wheeled him out?" How in the hell…"

"An email came in about a half hour beforehand saying he was getting transferred to a specialist private hospital. Email was from a leading Surgeon in the field. All the right protocols, everything checked out apparently. Then, as you can see, a paramedic came in, handed over the right paperwork and just trundled him out under everyone's noses."

"So have we got anything to go on?"

"Well the ambulance had false plates, no-one ID'd the driver and you can't see them on the outside cameras, the specialist that was supposed to have sent the email obviously hadn't done anything of the sort. The IT guys say there's no way of knowing where that email came from short of handing it over to the security services."

"I don't think that would be a good idea."

"So what _have_ we got is this. Back a few minutes if you would."

The security guard made a couple of mouse-clicks and the footage jumped to the same shot of the main hospital reception where someone in a high-visibility jumpsuit was chatting away with the receptionist for a minute or so, until he acknowledges someone off-screen and disappears into the hospital proper.

"There. Freeze it."

"Oh hell."

"Exactly. He seemed to know where the cameras were for the most part. Very good at hiding his face without looking too much like he was, if you catch my drift, but as you can see he slipped up."

Mutou looked at the digitized bespectacled face looking back at him confirmed his worst fears. That Subject 117, the one that the Foundation charmingly referred to as "The Anomaly" was loose in the field.

"OK, thanks for that" said Nurse and indicated to Mutou that any further conversation was for their ears only. They returned in silence to Nurse's car whereupon they carried on where they left off.

"Of course we could have spoken to various staff who saw him but with this we definitively know who we're dealing with and more importantly we know he's got help. He's got contacts. He's backed up with resources. This opens a very big can of very big worms. But at least we know something of the extent of the help he has to try and something this audacious."

"Too right. So what now?"

"Well I get back to the school and carry on like nothing's happened. For now at least. Anyone asked we got a call from the hospital and Hisao is improving." Nurse patted Mutou on the shoulder "Meanwhile you have to get back to the school and let the Foundation about the kidnapping of one of their newest acquisitions and the danger caused by the involvement of one of its most unstable assets."

As he slumped in the passenger seat, Mutou's headache worsened exponentially.

**…**

Hisao didn't wake with a start this time. As the drugs lessened their grip on his consciousness, he drifted gently back into wakefulness. He could see an intense flicker of something like a strobe light reflecting off the ceiling from someone nearby. Hisao studied them for a while thinking there might be a pattern but it all seemed random. Eventually the recollection of where he was slammed into his brain like a runaway train.

"Kenji? KENJI! Where the hell are you? For god's sake get me out of this thing. What are you – AGH!"

The curious light stopped and Hisao yelped as a strange apparition loomed into view, a large metal welding mask with two beady eyes looking through a small blue-tinted glass pane.

"AGH! What? Oh sorry man, forgot I had this thing on. Give me a sec."

As Kenji disappeared off to remove the mask, Hisao shouted "Not to stress this too much, but you owe me a LOT of answers." He had to keep reminding himself, despite this insanity he had been dragged into, to not go in all guns blazing at Kenji. He had been on the receiving end of how just how many degrees Kenji was askew from reality back at the school so and Hisao, despite everything, had the presence of mind to know if someone that unpredictable and possibly deranged had you in such a vulnerable position as he was now in, it was best not to rile them up to much. Plus getting some dialogue going might stop anyone doing anything….drastic.

"OK dude" said Kenji returning. Hisao noticed he was still wearing his school uniform as he pushed a tatty looking chair over and sat down by Hisao's feet so that by pushing his chin into his chest, Hisao could just about get a clear view. "No more secrets. Ask away."

"First, can't you get me out of…whatever this thing is?"

"No can do mi amigo. Can't have you moving about and messing yourself up even worse. I knew you'd lose it a bit when you woke up so keeping you like this was the only way."

OK. That's a start thought Hisao. I'm not here under duress as such. Assuming he's telling the truth. And who knew with Kenji what the truth was to him.

Kenji stood up "Is this going to take long man? I've got…" He glanced to his left anxiously "…a schedule to keep."

"A what? OK, look you're going to have to start from the start here. How am I not in a hospital? Or dead for that matter?"

"Second answer first. You bounced."

"I bounced."

"Yup. Hit something on the way down, took some of the momentum away. If you hadn't have done that they would have been taking you away in a bucket. You're damned lucky either way. I thought you were toast for sure."

Hisao let his head sink back down as he contemplated the fact he'd cheated the grim reaper for the second time in a year. After a moment, he turned ack to Kenji "OK, then what?"

"Then there was people shouting and running and then people calling an ambulance and then one arrived to take you away."

"And where were you while that was going on?"

"Making myself scarce. Couldn't have people jumping to the wrong conclusions. Couldn't have these people meddling in my affairs. Especially not those nurses."

"In your aff…? Dammit Kenji I could have been dead for all you knew!"

"But you're not. You are pretty banged up though. I read your paperwork. Couple of nasty breaks. They had you in a neck brace when I came to get you. Just as a precaution though. Standard procedure."

Hisao was pretty sure at this point, if had his arms free, he'd be pinching the bridge of his nose right now.

"Why in heavens name did you take me out of there? Wait a minute, HOW did you get me out of there?"

"Second one first again man. I had help. And that's all your going to get for now. Sorry."

"So don't I get the why then?"

A previously stone-faced Kenji leapt to his feet, clapping his hands together making Hisao jump.

"NOW we are getting to the good stuff! You'll like this dude, give me a sec."

Kenji disappeared downwards out of Hisao's vision and seemed to be tinkering with some mechanism underneath him. Suddenly Hisao's limited view changed as whether he was lying on was swung around and from the horizontal to the vertical. As he was swiveled around he caught sight of various tools and electronic equipment as well as several computer monitors glowing away in the gloom of… the word that came straight to the forefront of Hisao's mind was 'workshop'.

"What is this place? Where did you get all this stuff?"

Kenji kicked a couple of metal bars into place and began to push Hisao along like a warehouse worker moving stock."The same people that helped me get you here. Best to just call them my benefactors. They contacted me months ago and had heard about my struggle."

"Your struggle? Wait, the "battle against the feminists" thing? Are you serious?"

To Hisao everything pitched forward and the metal bars at his feet clanged to the floor. He panicked for a second as he thought he and it were going to overbalance to finish what a fall from the school roof had started. Kenji charged into view face full of fury, wagging a finger in Hisao's face.

"DEADLY serious! This isn't 'a thing'! It's THE thing. This is a game-changer! This is the final coming together of 2 years of work! Word had got around to the right people man! I started getting these emails. At first I thought it might have been feminist double-agents trying to lure me out into the open but we sent stuff back and forth. They sent me some documents about what they had planned. Too good to miss man, too good to miss."

Hisao looked at Kenji closely, had the sleep deprivation finally got to him? Was this the final stage of his slowly building psychosis? Had he explained all this a few days ago he would have said that the what little boundaries between fantasy and reality had finally crumbled for him, but after what had happened in the last day or so? After winding up in this strange workshop of his? Right now Hisao didn't know what to think.

"I knew you'd have some doubt even after all I'd told you last week, so that's why I thought I'd show you this straight away."

Kenji unhitched the apparatus from it's fixed position and turned Hisao to a previous unseen wall of the workshop who gaped in astonishment.

It reminded him in a weird way of that old Da Vinci drawing he'd seen in a textbook once - The Vitruvian Man or something, but as re-imagined for some schlocky science fiction film. Suspended from the ceiling but only a few inches from the floor were two transparent hemispheres, about 6 feet diameter with an centre circular section between them of white plastic with a hollow section in the outline of a human but with a extra space either side of the head like some bizarre life-size cookie cutter. Hisao could see all sorts of instrumentation around the inside of the outline and it was clear all these parts fitted together to make…what? A cockpit? He wondered this was a vessel to make him the first Japanese schoolboy to be shot into space.

"Impressive isn't it?" said Kenji as he stood in front of the object spreading his arms wide, imitating the outline behind him.

"Er..yeah. You made this?"

"I had…help"

"Your 'benefactors'?"

"Er…yeah."

"So wait, you put this…whatever this thing is together yourself? Man alive Kenji you can't see two feet in front of you and you mean to tell me you're suddenly an engineer or something?"

"I don't know what to tell you man. They showed me the blueprints and I just…kinda knew what I needed and how to put it together. I asked, they supplied. Whipped this baby up in a month or so. We've all got hidden talents after all."

Not that hidden, thought Hisao bitterly. So much of this still didn't make any sense.

"So what is it then?"

"It's for healing you."

"I'm sorry what?"

Kenji pointed up and down the equipment. "It'll monitor your vitals, direct muscle stimulation, hormone infusions, all sorts of cool stuff. That wasn't the primary function at first but it didn't take long to adapt. I put you in there and in a few days you'll be on the track speeding past that robot-legs girl."

Hisao didn't think anyone could blame him for being skeptical at all this, but he could hardly say he didn't want to co-operate. What was the alternative? Back to the hospital spending even more time on wards reeking of bleach but this time not being able to walk or move or do anything unaided? And what would Kenji do if he said no after revealing all this? He was unpredictable and volatile at the best of times, heaven only knows what he might do now someone from the outside knew what he had been up to. There was nothing Hisao could do to protect himself at the moment. he suspected that it was only a cocktail of drugs keeping him from being in agony. He'd play along with this charade. He didn't have much of a choice.

"OK. Looks like I'm going to be your guinea pig then. Let's get this over with."

"You know it makes sense man. This is just the start. When we get to Phase 2 it'll blow your mind clean out of your nose."

"What's Phase 2?"

"It's unfinished. Ultra-hush hush. Let's just get you strapped into this first and we can work ourselves a miracle!"

Kenji began the awkward process of transferring the prone Hisao into the contraption. It seemed that the white centre section would be hauled over, Hisao would be strapped into it and then the restraints that had kept him in place up until now would be released.

"Going to have to knock you out again man, it's just the early stages of the muscle thing is pretty painful even with what I've given you. Can't have you screaming the place down."

Hisao frowned as Kenji put a mask over his nose and mouth. He was getting a little fed up of the sensation of blacking out. "Thanks for that"

"I mean I've got more work to do, you'd distract me."

"Yeah. No worries."

As he was trussed up in this bizarre piece of cutting-edge technology with arms and legs spread, Hisao felt like he was going to spun around and have a circus performer throw knives at him. As the Perspex cover closed over him and Kenji gave a thumbs up from the workstation into which he busy typing instructions, he could see the outline of something vaguely humanoid at the other side of the room. Vaguely because it was far too tall or wide to be an actual person. It was metallic and slouched forward slightly but Hisao could make out some thin red lights around where the face might be. As the anesthetic began to take hold Hisao lost the ability to draw any conclusion on these sights he could see Kenji step away from the computer and put on his welding mask. Once again the intense glare flickered around the workshop as he set to work. As his vision clouded, Hisao saw a familiar name spelt out, but he had no time to make anything of this as the darkness closed in around him.

**…**

The four girls and latterly private investigators descended the steps from the roof eager to progress with the next stage of their enquiries but knowing that school protocol would have to come first which meant back to class. While Shizune and Misha were repairing the removed temporary barriers to the roof staircase, Emi spotted Lilly and Hanako leisurely making their way along the corridor, the latter both helping to direct the former and at the same time gripping onto her for a extra sense of security. Emi bounding over to them did not go unnoticed.

[She's going to tell them isn't she?]

_[Probably.]_

Shizune scowled. It was bad enough Emi couldn't keep this potentially sensitive matter to herself for 30 seconds but she goes and tells…._her_. Any second now Satou will be poking her nose in and doing that passive-aggressive thing she's turned into a science.

"Misha, what's all this about? It appears that you two have become Yamaku's answer to Holmes and Watson."

Misha made an uncharacteristically serious face. "It's something the Student Council are going to handle Lilly." Then picking up the baton of literary reference and running with it she chortled as she announced "The game is afoot! WAHAHA~!"

This got her a poke in the shoulder from Shizune followed by some emphatic signing.

"Shicchan says we will be handling this through the correct channels and hopefully some information will be passed down to put this matter to bed"

A section of Hanako peered around from behind Lilly and timidly asked "A-are you sure you should be getting involved? The Teacher said-"

"TEACHER!"

Hanako gave a small yelp as Misha suddenly exploded into life and bolted off down the corridor. "Mutou-Sensei! Hey, wait!"

The other girls saw the teacher in the distance who changed direction rather too jerkily for a man on a normal journey, he appeared to spin on his heel from walking towards them all to heading down a corridor towards the Anxillary Building which housed a lot of non-classroom facilities.

Emi was the next to give chase, Shizune reacted uncharacteristically slowly and hurried off to take the lead role in questioning the witness.

"Are we going to follow them as well?" asked Hanako of Lilly.

"I think we should, it may be good to get some information straight from the horse's mouth as it were. You know how people gossip around here. I think we are all eager to know what Hisao's current condition is."

"Yes I'm worried about him too, but I really don't like it. Students asking all these questions of teachers, doesn't feel right."

"I know Hanako, but apart from anything else poor old Mutou might need some help if Shizune gets to him first."

As they moved off at a steady pace with Lilly's cane clicked along the floor, Rin stood in the middle of the corridor seemingly nonplussed by the absence of all the other girls and this new turn of events. After about a minute she shrugged to no-one in particular and trudged off in the same direction.

After a few minutes of negotiating the grounds followed by the relatively unfamiliar corridors of the Anxillary Building and all the while following Misha's voice, Lilly and Hanako found the other girls in discussion at a t-junction of non-descript corridors. The amount of dust in the air catching the afternoon light was testament to the scarce use of this area.

"I swear Emi-chan, I saw him go down here. Ten seconds later I turn the corner and I see it's a dead end, but no Mutou. That's makes no sense right?". Misha waved an arm at the corridor which was indeed conspicuous by its absence of science teacher. No windows, no doors, just some banks of lockers and various discarded classroom furniture. Presently a chair near the end of the corridor fell over with a loud clatter making all the girls jump.

"But Misha there's no way…I mean are you sure it was even him?"

"He's my home room teacher, I'd know that scruffy old suit from 100 yards away."

"This is most perplexing." interjected Lilly after being brought up to speed "Have any of you ever been to this part of the school before? I know for certain that I haven't."

Shakes of the head all round. None of them seemed to have even known this part of the building was here before. The Academy wasn't the kind of place you went idly exploring, most students had more than their fill of the school during term time.

"I-I don't think there's anything to worry about. Could be anything." quavered Hanako, one hand over the scarred side of her face in nervousness at what for her was a grandiose speech. "We should get back, we'll be late for classes."

As if to make her case further, the bells for the end of lunchtime rang in the distance. With no time or leads to make any further in-roads into this mystery, the group moved off.

Except for Shizune, who stood for a little while staring angrily down the corridor as if there was a chance she could make Mutou materialize by sheer force of will. She did not like being beaten. Especially when it was not clear how she had been beaten. There was something rotten in the state of Yamaku and one way or another she was going to get to the bottom of it. She strode off to catch up with Misha and the others as they journeyed back to the main building

Elsewhere but closer than Shizune or any of the other girls could ever have suspected, Mutou watched her walk out of the camera's field of view.


End file.
